After travelling all the way up to Kincardine on Sunday only to find that the track was waterlogged and un-useable we decided to head straight for Irvine beach rather than go back home. We got there about 5pm and there was still lots of blue sky and sunshine. The sea looked amazing in the evening light.

As always the beach was deserted, and despite the very high tide Beanie had a superb time.

Looking at the photos Paul took you’d think that our little pup adored me and couldn’t bear to be parted from me. In 90 percent of the snaps she was glued to my side looking at me adoringly.

In actual fact she spent most of her time a mile down the beach from us chasing a galloping horse! She just sprinted back and forth between us and the horse….which was great exercise for her! The only time she stayed still for long enough for Paul to take a photo was when I pulled out a lump of chicken!

She made a couple of new pals – the first one we didn’t get the name of, but he was with the horse:

And then we met 5 month old Tucker the Jack Russell cross :

We also discovered a restaurant on the beach that welcomes dogs! It’s about three miles down the beach from the Harbourside, which means a nice 6 mile walk to burn off all the calories! We haven’t tried it yet, but we’ve heard the food is excellent and quite reasonably priced.

Chasing horses? Me? I’d never do anything naughty like that!!

We went back to Irvine Beach this morning. The BBC Weather tide tables served us well and we had a fair amount of beach to walk on, decent weather and, most importantly, some great chums for Beanie to play with.

Best of all was Bailey – pictured above – a Boxer pup around about the same age as Beanie. They hit it off straight away, playing chase both on the beach and in the water. While rummaging around just offshore, treasure hunter Bailey made a superb find – a battered milk container. The milk inside wasn’t just “off”, it was mature cheese – a true delicacy, and worthy of further chasing.

For me though, there was one really memorable moment on the walk. It happened when we met Rory, a gorgeous fun-loving retriever:

Rory was clearly very at home in the sea, and with a little coaxing Beanie followed him in and actually swam!

The tennis ball that was used for the coaxing (just visible in the above picture) was lost of course. It turns out that although Rory is a Retriever, he doesn’t. Retrieve that is. And as for Beanie, well it’s a small miracle any time we come back from a walk with an intact tennis ball.

Other points to note from this walk:

1. Ben. He was great chum too, and he had a tennis ball that squeaks.
   
2. Seaweed is damn tasty!
3. Beagles can fly:

Finally here’s a slideshow of more shots from the beach.

Although it was a little overcast we decided to take another trip down to Irvine beach this morning. We got quite a suprise when we arrived – it looked like a different beach and not just because it was gray and drizzly today. The lovely expansive beach that we strolled along last week had shrunk to a fraction of it’s size!

There must be 100m of a difference between the width of the beach at low tide and at high tide!

But the lack of beach (it is still more than three miles long at high tide) didn’t spoil Beanie’s fun any, and despite the rain Paul & I still enjoyed it. But I think the best possible time to go would be a nice sunny day when low tide occurs at about 10 am. According to the BBC Weather Tide Tables the next morning low tide is at least a week away :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/coast/tides/tides.shtml?date=20080729&loc=0411